The End is Near

Once upon a time I lived in Texas.  I was surrounded by people who loved me, friendly faces, a comfortable life.  One day something possessed me.  One day I decided to leave the comfortable life I lived to up and move to a city I’d never before been to and live with a girl I had never met.

Moving to Boston and living with Ashlyn was a huge change.  All of the sudden my comfortable life was turned upside down.  In this new city I had to live differently, work a little harder, and I had to not expect people to be friendly.  I needed my family more than I ever had before.  So we created our own little family.  Ashlyn and our cat became my new home and we only had each other to rely on.  Due to this and our common interests, we became best friends that year.  Our year was riddled with challenges, but we built a strong bond and explored the city together.  The memories we created from our adventures will always be a source of comfort to me.

Ashlyn will be graduating in just a few weeks, and I will be very sad to see her go.  Boston will not be as friendly of a place without my best pal here to support me, but I am proud of her.  In light of her upcoming graduation, I have spent even more time than usual reminiscing about our first year together.  From bed bugs, to apple picking, our pet cat, to our new friend Mohamed, we had a good year.  It was also definitely an eventful one.  I hope wherever Ashlyn goes from here, she is able to find a friend to be there for her the way she was here for me.

Boston Winter 2010-2011

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   Boston snowstorm — January 2011 midweek wallop – Boston.com

   Boston snowstorm Jan. 12, 2011 with blizzard conditions and nearly two feet of snow in some areas of Massachusetts.

   

   Boston
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   Winter Nor’easter in Boston

   kimbhut65

   Fri, Jan 14 2011 05:37:56
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   With Great Problems Come Great Twitter Accounts | The Quad bu …

   Feb 1, 2011… Boston University finally grew a set of snowballs and gave us a day off. Checking my email for a BU Emergency Alert come…

   

   Buquad
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   The snowstorms of 2010-2011 – Boston.com

   The winter of 2010-2011 has been marked by significant snowfall, including two … Two-day storm may drop up to 18 inches of snow on st…

   

   Boston

A few of their Favorite Things

Boston is a unique and interesting city, one that is definitely different from where I’m from.  I know what I love about Boston, but I was curious to see what others love about it.  So I asked a few of the residents on the 18th floor of my dorm what they thought.

Three People in a Mobil Mart

Maybe it was because I was a new transfer student, or maybe it was because I lived off-campus in Cambridge, but my first year attending Boston University, I did not have an abundance of friends.  And neither did Ashlyn for that matter.  We spent a lot of time together, exploring the city, shopping and trying out new coffee shops.  We also spent a lot of time befriending the man who worked at the Mobil Mart below our apartment complex.  This perhaps does not sound like the most fulfilling experience.  If someone had asked me before I moved how I thought I’d be spending my weekends up North, I would not in a million years have responded by saying I’d be spending my nights with my roommate, befriending the man who worked at the nearby Mobil Mart.

But surprisingly enough, this odd pastime became one of the defining activities of my first year living in New England.  It started off one night when Ashlyn and I were up late watching movies and in need of a late night snack.  So we went down to the Mobil Mart and started chatting up the man working behind the counter, Mohamed.  He was interesting and funny.  Talking to him was a lot more entertaining than watching Valentine’s Day upstairs in our apartment.

And this somehow became a habit.  We would go down to talk to him every weekend during his shift (he worked everyday from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM).  He would let us sit behind the counter and he told us stories of his past.  He had immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt, he had a fiance, and he had many dreams.  He worked those treacherous hours everyday in hopes that someday he would save up enough money to bring his fiance to America too.  Although his life was far from ideal, he stayed positive and never once complained.  Somewhere between the free cups of coffee he gave us, and the jokes about the drunk people stumbling in around 2:00 AM, the three of us formed a real friendship.

I have since moved away from that apartment, and Mohamed is now working as a falafel delivery man.  But we still keep in touch and I frequently escort him while he makes his deliveries.  Now on the weekends, I partake in activities more typical of a college student.  But I still look back fondly on the countless nights spent at the gas station and the lasting friendship it led to.